D’Tigers, D’Tigress get Tokyo Olympics opponents

By Ben Alaiya

Nigeria’s male and female basketball teams have known their opponents for the Tokyo Olympics games, though the International Olympics Committee is yet to pick a date for the games that was originally scheduled for 2020, due the Covid-19 pandemic.

The male team is in group B for the Olympics with top basketball nation Australia listed as one its opponents, they are expected to get two more opponents as qualifiers are still going on across the globe.

For D’Tigress they have a hill to climb as they have been grouped with top women’s basketball playing nations in a group already tagged the group of death. The countries they will contend with are the United States, France and Japan.

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Followers of the game are not giving the Nigerian lasses much of a chance to progress from the group, but Nigeria Basketball President, Musa Kida, said they should not be written off as they will cause some stare in Tokyo.

Both the male and female teams have already commenced preparations for the Tokyo Olympics in the United States and NBBF officials say preparations are going on very well.